A/64/215 these rights through their own initiative. 5 Since State authorities deprived them of personal liberty, it is an obligation of States (and not of families) to ensure that detainees can effectively enjoy their right to human dignity and all other human rights. In addition to the International Covenant and the Convention against Torture, a number of special conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, contain specific rules for certain categories of detainees. 48. Therefore, a comparison of the sad reality in many countries with the important international safeguards of the rights to personal integrity and dignity points to an enormous implementation gap. In fact, pretrial detainees are often kept in detention for a period of time far exceeding the limits of international law, and they do not enjoy the presumption of innocence. The penitentiary system in most countries is not aimed at the reformation and social rehabilitation of convicts but rather simply serves the punitive purpose of locking detainees and prisoners away. Most importantly, the conditions of detention in many places of detention do not meet any international minimum standards as laid down in the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and similar soft law instruments. 6 While international law provides that detainees, in principle, shall enjoy all human rights except the right to personal liberty, reality shows that the great majority of detainees around the world are in fact deprived of most human rights without any reasonable justification. In sum, this arbitrary deprivation and non-fulfilment of most human rights amounts to a systematic denial of human dignity and must, therefore, also be qualified as inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of articles 7 and 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, respectively. __________________ 5 6 09-43792 In this context, the Special Rapporteur would like to refer to the recent report of the independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation (A/HRC/12/24), which argues that the right to sanitation should be considered a separate human right. The context of detention certainly underpins the argumentation of the independent expert. The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were adopted in 1955 by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders and approved by the Economic and Social Council in its resolutions 663 C (XXIV) and 2076 (LXII). Although the Standard Minimum Rules use the term “prisoners”, rule 4 specifies that the rules of general application in part I are applicable to all detainees, i.e., all persons deprived of liberty. The Standard Minimum Rules are still considered as the most important soft law instrument for the interpretation of the various aspects of the right of detainees contained in article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: to be treated with humanity and respect for human dignity. They have been supplemented by a number of other universal and regional soft law instruments, including the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, approved by the Assembly in its resolution 43/173; the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, affirmed by the General Assembly in its resolution 45/111; the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, adopted by the Assembly in its resolution 45/113; the revised European Prison Rules, adopted on 11 January 2006 by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in recommendation Rec(2006)2; the Guidelines and Measures for the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Africa (the Robben Island Guidelines), adopted by a resolution of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights during its thirty-second ordinary session in October 2002 and approved by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held in Maputo in July 2003. 13